After several years, I will miss the warmth and the affection of Sunita and Naresh Kumar at their charming home in Calcutta at New Year’s Eve. I will miss the midnight Mass at the St Paul’s Cathedral and my night won’t be as Silent as it would have wont to be. I shall forgo the hooting on Park Street and the Santa Claus costumes that sell way after Christmas. I will miss the stick jaws of Nahoum’s as I will the chicken patties at Flury’s not to mention the Chicken Rezala at Shiraz. One won’t be going after the Kumar residence to the Ballygunge Azad Hind Dhaba to savour Chicken Bharta with tandoori rotis or wake up on January 1 to piping hot Hing Kachoris at Nu Variety.

Nor will I be sailing with a pretty maiden down the Hooghly taking the in the sights of the two bridges or for that matter Dakshineshwar whilst absorbed reading the latest tome from Amitav Ghosh. Nor will I witness the Races on January 1 and see men and women in their Sunday best cheering some steed of their betting. There is vivacity to Calcutta, which no city can and does produce. It is a city that was created for civil celebrations of almost every festival but it comes magically alive only during Christmas and New Year’s. The hotels are decked with Nativity scenes as with gift-laden Christmas trees.

The famed clubs of Calcutta open their hearts and kitchens to the Burra Din ka Khana and you meet people who you may have assumed have passed away. The lure of Calcutta lies in its sameness. Everything is the same. The guest list at the Kumar residence hasn’t altered for the last 50 years unless of course someone has moved on from this planet to another. The crooners have aged; perhaps even their voice but never their passion or the joide- vivre. The chicken gold coin at the Saturday Club may be a trifle more greasy but it is served by the same waiter who attended you parents’ wedding.

Such is the charm of Calcutta. There is still a scramble for tickets to the myriad New Year Eve parties that are hosted by various clubs and even in these times of Mamata and Modi you still need to be in a dark suit with shoes and obviously socks. It helps if that evening you shift your musical interest from Manna Dey to Manilow. Even the conversations are civil: no one threatens disobedience movements or for that matter talks about the strangely deceptive world of politics.

In Calcutta this is a time for celebration and remembrance: reminiscing the days of yore; you ask about your teachers; about the girl whose father never allowed her to walk with you in the verdant grounds of the Victoria Memorial. You exchange shy glances with the woman you once kissed in the darkness of the Birla Planetarium while discussing her grown-up children who are now studying in the US. You meet friends of your parents with the same warmth and perhaps the same fear that you did when you were growing up. There is a charm to seeing them age so gracefully and if there is one thing that can describe this Calcutta it is grace.

The grace with which you are served; the grace with which you waltz; the grace with which you discuss Bach or Beethoven and the grace with which you meet those who saw you without your airs and pretenses. In many ways, Calcutta was, is and will remain a great leveler. It never judges; it never ostracizes and it never casts you away. It embraces you with warmth and candour and at times even with a raging discussion on Marx and Engels. A city where the soul and the heart are the only things that can never be demonetized. Have a splendid New Year.

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